Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1907 — WASHINGTON GOSSIP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WASHINGTON GOSSIP

Information comes from a highly creditable source that the administration has about decided upon a striking change ta its financial policy. The action, if taken, will reverse former Secretary Shaw in one particular and may eliminate certain railroad bonds from the position they now occupy as giltedged securities. There is an impression here that it may have been an intimation of what was to come that sent J. P. Morgan across the Atlantic before he had time to put the finishing touches to the conference which he tried to arrange between President Roosevelt and leading railroad presidents. Foreign capital, which is heavily invested in American railroad enterprises, gives every evidence of extreme sensitiveness over the present agitation. Former Secretary Shaw, in his efforts to establish an elastic currency, permitted banks to place with the treasury railroad and other bonds to the amount they desired, conditional upon the government bonds so released being made the basis for increased circulation, It is said the present bead of the Treasury Department considers such a jncthod~Of~ finance is unsatisfactory, not conducive to financial stability and not in consonance with the general policies of the government. Many persons think that the censuses are compilations of figures for the delight of statisticians. But all workers for special classes and special sorts of legislation know that a good census is the foundation of work. To provide proper education for the blind and the deaf it is necessary first to have a full registry of them. To know how to prevent and punish crime we must list and classify our criminals. It is next to impossible to legislate, even to think intelligently, about divorce until we have divorce statistics. These are examples of the kind of census that we still lack. There are only three States in the Union that have begun to make a prop er registry of the blind, only nine that publish divorce statistics. In time every State will have an adequate working census of every class and kind of person that needs public help, and the national census will combine and codify the State censuses. The Board of United States General Appraisers has many curious and Interesting questions to decide in regard to the classification of imported articles, and the rate of duty which they must pay. One of the latest decisions is that the flag of the United States is not a toy. A Japanese firm of Importers in Chicago had brought in a consignment of silk flags, each an inch and a half long, and asked that they be admitted at 35 per cent ad valorem. The appraisers, however, decided that the flags must pay a duty of 50 per cent, as manufactures of silk. “We do not think,” they said, “that the American flag, however diminutive, is commertially, commonly or nationally regarded as a plaything for children; and we find that the flags in dispute are not toys.” President Roosevelt issued an order barring from the United States the Japanese and Korean laborers, skilled and unskilled, who had received passports to go to Mexico, Hawaii and Canada, and who have heretofore used that means of entering this country. Coincident with this order the President has directed the dismissal of the two suits filed in San Francisco with a view to testing the treaty rights of Japanese children to enter the white schools. This was in his pursuance of his agreement to take such action When the San Francisco school board rescinded its original resolution excluding children from the schools. This the board has done. The attendance at prayers in the United States Senate is not large, but It always includes Senators Platt and Depew, who usually sit together and withdraw before the business of the day begins. Sometimes there are only five or six who assemble to hear Dr. Hale's invocation. Upon a recent occa sion there were seven, and a curious observer made a memorandum of theit names. In addition toThe always de 7 vout Platt and Depew there were Perkins of California, Smoot of Utah, Dick of Ohio, McCreary of Kentucky, and Clark of Montana. Pursuant to the enactment of the new immigration law containing the Japanese exclusion provision Secretary Root cabled Gov. Carter at Honolulu to notify agents of steamship companies that Japanese laborers in Hawaii, with passports only for the Islands, would not be allowed to proceed to the United States mainland. The new rules governing the admissibility of post cards to the mails require conformity in weight aiyl size to those printed by the government. The cards must not b£ folded, and the use of mica, glass, tinsel, metal and similar substances is forbidden unless the cards be enclosed in envelopes. The cards may be of any color or combination of colors which does not interfere with th* legibility of the address.